The present invention pertains to a light control circuit and particularly one for use in controlling the interior lights of a vehicle.
Typically, vehicles have a variety of lights for providing interior lighting to a vehicle either upon ingress and egress or for illuminating the interior of the vehicle temporarily for, as an example, reading a map, toll card, etc. Typically, these lights are operated by switches associated with the vehicle doors or alternatively by a separate manual switch located on the dashboard or near the light itself.
On occasion, a vehicle occupant will manually activate the courtesy lights when parking to find an article to be removed from the vehicle, write something down or perform some other function which requires additional interior ilumination. When the doors are opened, however, the lights will be on and the conditioning of this expected condition frequently prevents the vehicle operator or occupant from remembering to turn off the manual switch. Thus, the operator can close the vehicle door and the interior lighting remains on, frequently unnoticed. This can, in a relatively short period of time, either partially or totally discharge the battery causing significant inconvenience.